THE SNIPER’S LOVE NEST

​In April of 1963, Marina Oswald was 21 years old, pregnant and briefly glimpsed a brighter future in Oak Cliff. The month before, Lee moved Marina and their 2-year- old daughter into the upstairs unit of a duplex at 214 W. Neely St.

The Oswald’s previous apartment was just around the corner on Elsbeth Street. At that complex, however, Marina suffered violent spousal abuse.

In Russia, young Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova was a remarkable beauty with sparkling eyes. She worked as a hospital pharmacist in Minsk. Like Cinderella, she met Lee at a city dance hall, and they married six weeks later. But the defector who spoke fluent Russian would eventually lead her to the U.S. — which meant saying goodbye to family, friends and her homeland.

In the Neely Street backyard, Lee instructed Marina to trip the shutter of his Imperial Reflex Camera. Marina snapped at least three photos of Lee posing with firearms and recent editions of Socialist newspapers. He told Marina to preserve an image of himself as the gun-wielding father for baby Junie.

The Oswalds resided at Neely Street for only seven weeks. There, Lee was distracted from treating Marina like a punching bag because he had transformed into a full-blown assassin. On April 10, 1963, Lee fired his rifle at Edwin Walker, but the bullet only grazed the conservative anti-integrationist.

Marina also testified that in April 1963, Lee grabbed his pistol and announced that he was going to assassinate former Vice President Richard Nixon. Marina reminded Lee that he promised — after boasting about the Walker shooting — to never repeat such an act. Marina started to cry. Then she embraced her husband. For several minutes, Lee struggled against Marina, but she managed to calm him. That day, Lee left the Neely Street apartment without his gun.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Marina tried to hide the Neely Street photo from detectives. She visited Lee in jail with the image tucked inside her shoe.

When Marina was moved into protective custody at The Adolphus Hotel, Lee’s mom helped Marina burn the photo and flush the ashes down the toilet — neither realized that Lee proudly made duplicates. Marina’s credited for an image that’s both a Life magazine cover and an obsession for conspiracy theorists.

Presently occupied, 214 W. Neely is in serious disrepair. It served as a pivotal location for Stephen King’s “11/22/63” — when the protagonist occupies the downstairs unit to spy on the Oswalds.

The property was always intended to generate income. Dr. Charles L. Morey began framework on the two-story, eight-room building on Aug. 7, 1930 — when the structure was listed with two addresses: 312-314 W. Neely. By 1938, the address changed to 212-214 W. Neely.

Marina wrote Jacqueline Kennedy two letters of sympathy but couldn’t summon the courage to send them, saying, “I feel this would make too much pain for her.”

Over the decades, Marina’s opinion about Lee’s culpability transformed. (Keep in mind that during FBI interrogations and sworn testimony, Marina wasn’t naturalized. The widow — and mother of two Americans — faced deportation.) In 1993, she called on President Clinton to pardon her husband, “for a crime he did not commit.”

During one of his “perp walks,” a reporter asked Lee how he got the bruise above his eye. Oswald leaned into the camera and said, “A policeman hit me.”